By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
A 17-year-old St. Joseph girl will represent the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation of Kansas and Missouri in Washington, D.C., advocating to fund diabetes research.
Madison Theas will be a senior at Central High School this fall. Before that, she will travel to Washington as part of a delegation of 160 children living with Type One Diabetes to lobby Congress for diabetes research.
“It’s just really important for me to be an advocate for myself and my community,” Theas tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post in an interview. “We’re a little unseen, unheard sometimes.”
Theas left for Washington Friday morning. The delegation will speak with members of Congress and even testify at Congressional hearings.
Theas was diagnosed with diabetes Thanksgiving evening of 2012. She went in and out of consciousness while being driven to Children’s Mercy Hospital and had to spend two days in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. She has been insulin dependent since.
The JDRF 2023 Children’s Congress runs Sunday through Tuesday. It is comprised of 160 children living with Type One Diabetes, ages four to 17. Joining the U.S. delegation will be five international delegates from Australia, Canada, Israel, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The Children’s Congress is inspired by a Massachusetts boy named Tommy Solo who at the age of nine asked his mother why children with diabetes couldn’t go to Washington to tell Congress they want scientists to find a cure.
Delegates to the Children’s Congress will lobby members of Congress privately and some will testify during Congressional hearings.
“I’m excited for my story and my life to be heard and for them to hopefully understand just what I go through and what other kids go through and why it matters so much that this funding gets passed,” Theas says.
Theas says it’s important for members of Congress to hear from the children who have to live with Type One Diabetes.
“I just hope that our representatives will be advocates, too and speak for us in lawmaking,” Theas says. “And just take not only diabetics, but all disabled families, children into account when they’re passing laws, when they’re passing budgets.”